


Life After Them

by Atunenamedclara



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Angst, Doctor Feels (Doctor Who), Other, PoV Clara Oswald, death in heaven, whouffaldi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-21
Updated: 2016-01-21
Packaged: 2018-05-15 08:33:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5778895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Atunenamedclara/pseuds/Atunenamedclara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clara Oswald fights her way through her depression following the events of Death in Heaven, and figures out life after Danny and the Doctor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Life After Them

Time means nothing to me. I float through days, the hours slipping through my hands like water, but my feet dragging in the minutes like thick mud. Occasionally I slip out of the thick fog I’m sitting in, to smile at family, reassure friends that really, I’m fine, and to thank students who tell me they are “so sorry for your loss Miss”.  
Spending time alone is the hardest. I sit and I dream about the days I’ve lost and I mourn for the ones I never had. The ones we never had. Sometimes people say that they understand my need to be alone and they won’t disturb me. I find myself smiling at them, murmuring thanks and perhaps a few other empty words. But inside I am screaming. I don’t want to be alone anymore. Everybody’s left me, there’s nobody left, I am alone and have always been alone.  
I know death happens to everyone and that it is inevitable. I’m not upset that Danny died. I’m upset that he left me behind. I find myself angry with him, cursing his selfishness, not understanding how he could do this to me, not if he loved me as he said he did.  
My thoughts consume me, eating me from the inside out, poisoning my mind and choking my soul. The despair I feel is so deep, so raw, so painful. I cannot go on much longer. Each morning I wake up, convinced that today will be the day I give up. And it never is. I keep going, keep breathing, against all possible odds.  
I think I am slowly dying of heartbreak.  
Night brings no relief. My sleep is light, interrupted with nightmares, phantoms of my past drawn by my mind in new terrifying proportions. I wake up drenched in sweat, shaking and gasping but there is nobody to hold onto for comfort anymore.  
I have lost so much in such a short time.  
I lost the man I would have loved until the end. The man I lied to, the man I deceived and the man I only ever gave time to as a second option. But I loved him. With him, it was easy. Lazy Sunday afternoons and walks in the rain. Coffee on a Wednesday and Chinese on a Friday.  
And I lost the man I could never love. The man I ran to, the man I ran away with and the man that showed me a thousand stars. But I loved him. With him it was complicated. It was messy, it was chaotic and it was trying. But it was beautiful.  
And now they are both gone.  
Sunday morning rain falls down the windowpane. I am starring in my own clichéd Romance Gone Wrong novel. A book lies open on my lap, my fingers idly resting atop page 371. For several moments I almost feel at peace, almost content, after being drawn in by a Classic novel, portraying lives much simpler than mine.  
“Clara?”  
A voice breaks through my stupor, lifting me out of a moment of peace, throwing me back into a wild storm, driving rain stinging my skin.  
I look up, my much dulled eyes meeting Gran’s.  
“Clara, there’s no food in the fridge love. How have you been eating?”  
I stutter. Something about takeout and groceries and a Tesco shop.  
“I just want to make sure you’re taking care of yourself” she continues, eyes gazing into mine, as if she can see right through me, to the blackness within. My mask means nothing to her, she knows my pain and she is determined to lighten my load.  
“Gran, I’m fine” my automatic response kicks in, as prepared by the countless other times I have had to go through this.  
She leaves. After a few minutes of one sided conversation, she leaves a bag of groceries on the side, makes me a cup of tea and walks out.  
Just before she closes the door behind her, she speaks again.  
“Clara.” She says sternly. “This can’t go on forever. This isn’t what he would have wanted”  
“Danny Pink doesn’t care what I want. Danny Pink is dead.”  
The words sound stale in my mouth. A bitter taste sweeps over my tongue and against my will, my eyes begin to water. I have not said these words out loud in so long and it hurts. It burns and it is tearing me apart.  
But Gran isn’t finished with me yet. She shakes her head softly.  
“Not Danny Pink, Clara, not him. The Doctor. He would want you to be happy. He left you to be happy.”  
She shuts the door softly behind her. I hear her keychain clinking all the way down the hallway and then the creaking descent of the lift starts up.  
I lift my head up and look around. For the first time in three months, I really look.  
I see the condolence cards still sitting atop shelves and the dust collecting around them. I see the photo frames on the wall, pictures of fields in the sun and forests in the dim autumn light. I see the empty frames. Two of them. And I know if I look down the side of the sofa, I will find their contents, yellowed and dirty from months on the floor.  
I listen. I hear the clock tick and I hear the muffled voices on the TV in the flat next to mine. I hear my own breath, quiet and delicate, the only sound breaking up a thick, stifling silence.  
And then, for the first time in three months, I cry. I cry until I feel as if I must have run out of tears and then I continue to sob deep wracking sobs, my whole body convulsing with the force of them. I cry until I am sick and weak and tired. I cry until I feel alive.  
And I sleep. A sleep so deep and impenetrable that even the largest monsters and the darkest shadows cannot interrupt it.  
Recovery is slow and ugly and full of broken days and I would not expect it to be any other way. But I begin to realise that I can live a life after him. After them. Sometimes I find myself smiling, if just at the smallest things. A ridiculous spelling mistake in a year 9 essay on Bronte. Two birds chasing each other in circles in the park.  
Sometimes I laugh now. At a joke cracked by the new maths teacher at school. At a note my dad leaves taped to my fridge one day.  
Sometimes I cry. I cry because I see shooting stars from my bedroom window but I am not next to them. I cry because I see someone in the street wearing a shirt similar to one Danny used to have.  
The leaves fall off the tree and the sky grows dark early. Frost greets me in the morning and cold winds accompany my rides to school.  
On December 24th I walk out my flat and into the busy high street. The shops are full of a last minute rush for presents and turkey and party hats. Children run past in red hats and green mittens, cheeks pink from the cold. Couples saunter past, hand in hand, talking in low tones about plans for tomorrow and families push past each other in their rush to get home to warmth and holiday and good food.  
Only I am alone. The pain stabs me in the heart as I survey the scene, as a stranger in my own land. I can almost imagine his hand in mine, can nearly hear his voice float past on the wind and if I wish hard enough maybe he will be real again, be mine again, to love and to keep.  
A small child rushes past, knocking me into a lamppost, breaking the spell. I turn around and return to the warmth inside and survey the bare table.  
I lay it. A plate, a cup, a fork and a knife. A napkin. A mug of tea. Only, when I look again, I have laid two places. For two people.  
But if Danny is dead, who am I laying a place for?  
Not him. Not the man I have not allowed myself to dream of for so long. The man who flew off back to his family, his life, and left me in this living hell. I wouldn’t have asked for it any other way. He is probably celebrating his own Christmas back on Gallifrey. Full of timelord festivity and regenerating Christmas crackers.  
But I cannot help wishing he was here.  
Just for one last Christmas.


End file.
